Read the following article and write a 200 word minimum discussion post that includes answers to
Why do you choose or not choose to ingest artificial sweeteners?
How do artificial sweeteners work in your body?
Why don't they have any calories (or low in calories)?
Are they better than sugar? Are there benefits? Drawbacks?
Are they healthy for humans?
In your discussion, include three examples of artificial sweeteners.
Reply to one classmate's post.
View files
Ass2: Fad or Fab?? (200 words)
Read the following article and write a 200 word minimum discussion post that covers the following topics.
How do low-carb diets work on your body?
What is ketosis?
Are you in favor of low-carb diets? Why or why not?
Reply to one classmate's post.
View files
Ass3 ( answers to questions)
- Read the background essays below.
- Watch the videos.]
Video I
https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/pj07.sci.civil.tactics.education/getting-an-education/ (Links to an external site.)
Video II
https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/drey07.sci.phys.matter.cortisone/making-cortisone-from-plants/ (Links to an external site.)
- Submit answers to the following questions.
Video I questions:
What obstacles did Julian have to overcome before finding success as a chemist?
Why did Julian leave the Montgomery area to further his education?
What were Percy Julian's "firsts" in the field of science?
Video II questions:
Why was cortisone initially so scarce?
How are plant steroids similar to our steroids?
Explain the importance of Julian's Compound S. How did it ultimately make cortisone more readily available?
Have you or someone you know ever had to be treated with cortisone? Hydrocortisone? If so, what was the outcome?
Background Reading
Essay I
Background Essay
Percy Lavon Julian was born in 1899 in Montgomery, Alabama, during an era of legalized segregation that had begun years earlier, just as the promise of education for African Americans was taking flight.
When the Civil War ended, Reconstruction-era legislation granted African Americans unprecedented freedoms. In many southern states, education for African Americans became legal for the first time, and new schools sprouted up across the South. However, the Compromise of 1877 then put an end to Reconstruction and efforts to protect the rights of African Americans.
During the 1880s and 1890s, southern states enacted laws designed to dismantle Reconstruction policies and restore political, economic, and social power to white elites. In1896, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate public facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were equal, thereby establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine. However, separate facilities for whites and blacks were never equal.
When Julian started school in the early 1900s, getting an education was difficult for African Americans. There were few black schools, and inadequate state funding left them overcrowded, in disrepair, and with far fewer resources than white schools. It was not uncommon for black students to walk several miles in each direction to school, or for students to bring their own firewood in order to have heat.
The plight of black schools caught the attention of some northern philanthropists and southern school reform supporters who tried to improve education for African Americans. Some believed that an industrial education could provide a means for training African Americans to work in a changing and growing economy. Among them was former-slave-turned-educator Booker T. Washington, who led Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, a vocational school designed to educate and train freed slaves and their children.Others advocated for full educational rights and a more liberal-arts education for African Americans. These proponents included the black scholar and N.A.A.C.P. founder W.E.B. DuBois. White missionary societies also funded a handful of private black colleges in the South that focused on teacher training.
However, white resistance to educating African Americans was immense. Because the local agricultural economy depended on and exploited black workers, many whites opposed any formal education for African Americans for fear that they would leave the low-paying agricultural and service jobs. Few public black schools went beyond the eighth grade; in Alabama, there were none. White employers often fired black employees for attending school. White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized African Americans by burning schools, randomly beating and murdering teachers and students, and intimidating others from attending.
In 1916, Julian moved north to pursue his education. He attended high school and DePauw University in Greencastle Indiana, graduating with honors, and went on to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some colleges in the North accepted a handful of black students, but the social climate was unwelcoming and the opportunities limited. Ultimately, Julian moved to Europe to earn his Ph.D.
Essay II
Cortisone is a naturally occurring hormone made by the human body's adrenal glands, located just above the kidneys. It is also present in the bile of cattle. In 1948, recognizing cortisone's remarkable effectiveness in shutting down pain receptors, doctors began using cortisone produced from animal bile to treat patients suffering from a debilitating condition called rheumatoid arthritis.
Although some cortisone circulates naturally through the body, large doses of it are needed to treat the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Because millions of people suffered from the condition—and because animal bile yielded precious little cortisone at a very high cost—cortisone was in high demand but short supply. The challenge for scientists was to somehow make a far greater quantity of it at a much lower cost.
The process of making a natural substance in the lab from simple building blocks is called synthesis. In order to synthesize a hormone like cortisone, chemists have to first understand how the natural molecule is put together. Based on its chemical structure, cortisone is classified as a steroid hormone. Although different steroids produce different physiological effects, all steroid molecules have a similar chemical structure: a nucleus composed of three six-sided carbon rings fused to each other, and one five-sided ring. In 1948, the procedure used to synthesize cortisone using animal bile involved 38 steps.
In 1949, the African American chemist Percy Julian pioneered a much simpler approach, one that used a cheap and abundant source—soybeans—in place of animal bile. Working from knowledge established during the 1920s and 1930s, when chemists had discovered that certain plant compounds contained a structural and functional similarity to animal compounds, Julian set out to create a plant-derived compound that would produce the same physiological response in humans as animal-derived cortisone.
Julian succeeded in synthesizing a molecule that, though it wasn’t exactly cortisone, was very similar in its chemical framework. It varied from cortisone by one single oxygen atom. Julian's molecule, known as "Compound S," was also present in the human body. In fact, the body used it to produce natural cortisone in one simple step. Likewise, to make synthetic cortisone from Compound S, one had only to deliver the missing oxygen atom to a precise location on the molecule. Scientists found a way to do this within two years, and cortisone that had previously cost hundreds of dollars a gram could be made for pennies.